Delhi Student To NASA Astronaut Ready For Launch: Anil Menon's Journey

In a quiet corner of New Delhi's Greater Kailash, right next to the older NDTV bureau, a young man once spent his days walking the bustling streets of India's capital. He was a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, driven by a quiet but immense desire to understand the world. He eventually left the comfort of Harvard to join a grassroots Rotary Foundation campaign, travelling into remote Indian villages to vaccinate children against polio.

Three weeks from now, that same man will look down at India from an altitude of 400 kilometres, suspended in the silent expanse of microgravity.

Astronaut Anil Menon, a physician, engineer, US Space Force colonel, and now NASA astronaut, is about to leave Earth. On July 14, he will launch aboard the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, bound for a gruelling eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station. In an exclusive conversation with NDTV World, speaking directly from the historic, snow-dusted grounds of Star City, Russia, Astronaut Menon shared the complex realities of preparing for a life lived beyond the atmosphere.

For Astronaut Menon, Star City carries a profound, cyclical significance. Long before he wore the official blue flight suit of the NASA astronaut corps, he walked these identical corridors in 2013 as a flight surgeon, working behind the scenes to keep international crews healthy. Returning here as the one who will actually sit atop the rocket brings a wave of bittersweet reflection. He admits that leaving this place feels like leaving home, knowing that when his eight-month stint ends, he will be flown directly back to the United States for scientific debriefings, leaving this chapter of his life permanently behind. Yet, the underlying note in his voice remains one profound excitement for a lifelong dream that is finally within arm's reach.

An eight-month mission in deep space is a staggering physical commitment, but Astronaut Menon emphasises that the real preparation is psychological. Having endured extreme endurance trials like the Ironman and the gruelling military-grade Kokoro crucible, he views these challenges as essential tools to sharpen his mental toughness. It is this exact mental resilience that he relied on during his seven years at SpaceX, where he spent his days solving seemingly impossible hurdles for aerospace on a weekly basis. Now, under the ambitious parameters set by the mission commander, Jared Isaacman, he views the near-impossible not as a barrier, but as the baseline expectation.

When asked what his younger self (the young student navigating the vibrant chaos of New Delhi and working in rural immunisation camps) would say to him today, Astronaut Menon smiles. He believes that the younger version would look up and simply say, "I'll be up there soon with you." He credits his time in India, with its rich tapestry of people and boundless potential, as a core source of inspiration that taught him to believe anything is possible.

As India's own human spaceflight aspirations accelerate, Astronaut Menon expresses immense pride in his heritage and holds a deep desire for the next generation of Indian youth to dream well outside the boundaries of their immediate world. For him, space exploration is not a national race, but a collective, global human aspiration.

Like the classic Pink Floyd lyric, Astronaut Menon is about to transition from the man on the outside looking in to the man on the inside looking out. It is a perspective shift he has chased his entire life, seeking a deeper, almost spiritual understanding of human existence. When his rocket clears the pad in Kazakhstan, he will carry the hopes of two hemispheres with him, proving that the road to the stars can start exactly where you are.